


Not a Relapse

by tenscupcake



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:23:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenscupcake/pseuds/tenscupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When adversity strikes, Billie turns to David for a kind of comfort only he can offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Relapse

**Author's Note:**

> Been dying to write an rpf for over a year and I finally squeezed something out... I’m super rusty because this tiny fandom is dead af and our captain is gone (still sobbing about it) and I’ve had no new content to keep the rpf muse afloat... but i think I like it. I sort of like it. Ok fine so I feel like I’m plunging into hell for my punishment as I type this note but it was so incredibly satisfying alright?!
> 
> It’s of course quite sad because it’s them and it’s not AU but it’s also sort of... the fluffiest d/b thing i’ve written? It’s a weird combo.
> 
> WARNINGS: infidelity, mild exploitation of personal lives...
> 
> Anyone is more than welcome to read and join me in these flames of perdition :) otherwise, you know the drill. It’s rpf. This fic is definitely NOT for everyone. HEED THE WARNINGS. please. dl;dr. I REPEAT - DL;DR.
> 
> Okay, those hazard signs out of the way, I can tone it back down a little. Honestly, to diehard closet shippers of this forbidden otp like myself who are still suffering with the lack of content, this fic probably won't even feel that sinful but I realize to some people a fic like this is the most harrowing and depraved of evils. So I had to be very up front about what kind of content it is to protect myself from any backlash from innocent people who read it by accident because I didn't warn them. 
> 
> Also I should probably just give this caveat because it's been a while since I have. This isn't real. I don't condone or endorse these sorts of events coming to fruition. My rpf is inspired by real people but rest assured, when I write them, they're still characters.

She goes over them in her head as she assembles her disguise – all the reasons seeing him is a bad idea.

_Two minutes alone with him away from fans and paps is dangerous, let alone two hours._

She trades her predictable cheetah-print leggings and gray jumper for baggy shorts and a black t-shirt she’s never worn.

_One of you is still married. It’s still an affair._

Fashions a messy bun on top of her head and pulls a Disney cap over it.

_All it will do is newly validate years of accusations._

Frowns as she stares at the mirror and second guesses the jumper and hat – it’s bloody hot outside. Sighs and resolves to leave them on because she can’t risk being recognized.

_He won’t be able to tell you what you want to hear._

With a pair of black Wayfarers over her eyes, she can hardly recognize herself, and deems the camouflage complete.

\---

She goes over them again in the backseat of the car, as the sun sets over cities and landscapes outside the tinted windows.

Again as she ambles the pavement along the Bristol street, re-reading his last text.

_Left the extra key in the plant by the lift._

But it doesn’t matter if her brain can give her a million reasons doing this is wrong; it’ll never stand a chance against her bleeding heart. Since she first texted him last night, every forbidden memory of him she’s forced to wither and fade have burst back to life in brilliant, vivid color. Her chest aches for the embrace of her best friend. Skin craves his generous touch. Wounded self-esteem yearns for his seductive chivalry.

He never fails to make her feel special. Beautiful. Wanted.

Without hesitation, she slips through the gold-plated revolving door and into the marble lobby.

\---

She wipes soil off the keycard with her shirt and practically runs down the fifth-floor hallway. The lock miraculously disengages on the first swipe, and she stumbles through the door, anxious to see his face. But the single, king bed is professionally made, and the room’s only occupants are a suitcase propped open beneath the telly and a phone charger hanging off the nightstand.

The door wheezes and clunks closed loudly behind her.

She wrenches her phone out of her bag, and curses to herself when she types her passcode wrong twice in her haste.

_Here_ is all she can manage to type before she mashes ‘send.’

Eyes glued to their conversation thread, she kicks off her sandals, and pulls off her cap and the tie keeping her hair up before collapsing on the bed.

Eight torturous minutes pass before the three gray dots finally start their dance beneath her message.

_On my way._

\---

A card clicks and slides in the lock, and she springs out of bed and onto her feet, heart in her throat. But instead of the happy chirps of granted access, the door bleeps out a low, angry denial of entry, and she rushes forward to wrench it open.

He’s swapped the disheveled suit and coat for crisp dark jeans and a halfway unbuttoned plaid collared shirt, cap and designer shades clutched in his hand, but the detective’s unkempt scruff and dull, lifeless hair have followed him home.

She returns his tentative smile as she takes a step back from the door, and he shuffles inside with a grateful nod, as if it’s her hotel room.

The slam of the door is even louder this time. A harbinger of transgression.

She’s about to offer a casual greeting to break the tension, to playfully punch him in the arm, insult his flat hair, ask him how the week is going. To wait for him to breach the many platonic barricades they’ve constructed, give him a chance to reconsider and reverse this before it starts. It’s always been routine for them: the one who solicits a private encounter at a discreet location doesn’t make the first move. Initiation is their time-tested gesture of consent. But she can already see it in his eyes; he knows she didn’t come all this way to catch up and watch telly.

Before she can think of the right opening question, he lunges forward, drops everything in his hands onto the floor, and stops her gasp with his mouth.

His skin is rougher than she likes it, it scratches her chin and prickles her fingertips when she touches his cheek, but it still feels like him. His lips leave a pleasant peppermint tingle on hers from that gum he likes. And he always starts out gentle, almost cautious. Hands on her waist, slowly pulling her closer. With him it never feels like something dirty, like a relapse into adultery. When his lips are on hers, she’s not his mistress – she’s his soul mate. An old flame torn away from him by a cruel twist of fate that finally found him again.

It may not be the eyes welling up, fireworks-exploding, stomach-swooping magic of fairy tales, not the way Rose kissed the blue-suited Doctor on the beach, but he makes certain it’s something meaningful. In this moment, she’s the only thing in his world that matters. Any guilt is indefinitely postponed.

He empties her mind of everything but him, calms a storm of anxiety with every brush of his lips. Before long her knees give out beneath her and she goes limp in his arms but he holds her upright. Secure against him. His hands don’t budge from their hold on the small of her back, but he slowly eases them out of the kiss, rests his forehead against hers.

“Been so long,” he breathes, grazing her nose with his while she cards her fingers through his hair. Not since they’ve seen each other. It’s been hardly a month since then.

He means so long since he’s been allowed to hold her like this, since she’s let herself taste his lips. The longest they’ve ever gone. Years. Of beating down fantasies of a scrawny Shakespeare nerd with dreamy brown eyes and a lilting brogue and trying to make a doomed marriage work.

“Too long,” she agrees. Tries to chuckle but it comes out a nervous wheeze.

“Are you sure you…”

 “Yeah,” she rushes out before he can finish, and tugs on his collar to bring his mouth back to hers. It’s different this time. The innocent hesitance is gone, replaced by curious tongues, wandering hands, muffled sighs of pleasure. It’s rougher. She’s tries to unhinge his practiced control and he tries to tame her impatience. The overgrown stubble normally tingles and burns but tonight it feels good, tells her he’s rugged and real and she’ll have red, swollen lips to prove this wasn’t another dream.

\---

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers as he pushes her back onto the pillows.

He echoes the sentiment next to her ear, and his teeth sink into her neck.

But when all the shirts are floating to the floor where they belong, and he finally stares down at her newly exposed skin, his entire body goes still, save for one finger he traces over her ribs.

“You look thin, Bills.”

Taken aback by the remark, she covers her chest with her arm and pushes hard on his chest with the other.

“Nice way to make a girl feel sexy,” she spits out.

“No, it’s not…” He’s unaffected by the shove but startled by the accusation.

“Think because they gave you a fancy doctorate you can just…”

“Bill.” He stops her tirade with a hand on her arm. Coaxes her to relax with gentle caresses before pulling it away from her chest, replacing it with his mouth. He kisses her sternum, runs his fingertips down her bare abdomen and waistline.

“I’m not trying to be your Doctor.” He smirks as he trails kisses over her collarbone, and reaches deftly underneath her to unclasp her bra. “And you are just…” He slips it off her arms and leans down to kiss to her breast, just shy of her areola. “As stunningly…” He kisses her other breast in the same fashion. “ _Beautiful_ …” He lifts his head and kisses her forehead, both cheeks, then her mouth. “As you were the day I met you.” A warm blush spreads everywhere he’s touched with his lips, hairline to navel. “I’m just worried you haven’t been taking proper care of yourself.”

A lump of unshed tears burns in her throat. Despite all the times she’s broken his heart and all the trouble their messy relationship has caused, he’s never stopped caring for her. She can’t let him see how badly she wants him back. Even as her own family was falling apart, she promised herself she wouldn’t be the reason his did. And if she cries and yearns for him and he caves to her wishes, she will be.

“Shut up, you’re not.” She knees him in the thigh. “You got what you wanted.”

He looks hurt.

“What I wanted?” He strokes her cheek with his thumb.

“You’ve never been subtle, Dave.”

“I never wanted you to be unhappy. I just wanted you.”

She sighs.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“No, you’re right. It wasn’t my place.”

He lifts up to move off of her, to give her some space, but she tugs him back down on top of her by his shoulders. Cards her fingers through his hair, pulling it up into a messier style with her fingers. He leans into her touch, content to let the conversation drop, and his head slowly droops until his chin is resting on her chest and his eyelids flutter closed with a purr.

She’s missed this, turning him to jelly with something as chaste as playing with his hair. She became so accustomed to the texture of a cropped mane damaged by years of bleaching, her memories haven’t done justice to how lush and satisfying David’s really is, abundantly soft and pliant between her fingers.

She shifts her hand down, grazes behind his neck and between his shoulder blades with her fingertips. She stills her palm on his back, and he shivers as gooseflesh spreads around her hand.

“It wasn’t just me, you know, you were never… single either.”

He sighs.

“I know.”

They both lie quietly for a few long moments, skin against skin, and she commits the sensations to memory: his bony hips and lean chest, the musk of day-old cologne, his scratchy cheek pillowed on her breast.

But suddenly, he reaches around, closes his hand around her wrist and lifts it off his back. Her arm recoils, but he secures her hand in his grip, and she holds her breath for the inevitable. For his eyes to open, for the deep breath and forlorn apology that they can’t go through with this. That he’s changed his mind.

But none of those things come.

He drops her hand pointedly on top of his head.

She giggles with relief and starts combing her fingers through his hair again, her thumb massaging behind his ear, and he breathes out a low, rumbly moan from his chest.

“Want me to just do this all night?”

“Mmhmm.” He nods weakly, but doesn’t open his eyes.

“’Kay.” She chuckles softly, adding her other hand to work beside the first. When he peeks an eye open to check her reaction, she smiles for his benefit. She thinks he’s teasing, but she can’t plainly assume he is and demand more. Not yet.

But it’s that precise moment that he shifts above her, tilts his head to the side and closes his lips over breast. His tongue swirls in a hot, wet circles and she gasps and arches into him, clutching tufts of his hair in both hands.

He hums with victory, and the vibrations cascade down her body and throb between her legs.

“Thought I was just gonna lie there?” he murmurs, before shifting his mouth to her other breast.

She mumbles something incoherent.

\---

He captures her lips in an eager, sloppy kiss as his hand grazes the inside of her thigh, and one of his fingers delves inside her slick, swollen folds.

He breaks the kiss with a curse, then lowers his lips to her jaw while his fingertip searches for her clit. His mouth moves lower, leaving a zigzag of marks down her throat. Her chest. Her stomach.

“Wait,” she calls out through the haze of anticipation, tugging back on his hair before his lips touch below her bellybutton.

“I never thought I’d lose him,” she rushes out, short of breath. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

One day the guilt of what they’ve done may be too much, and he’ll be gone for good. Not even her friend anymore.

Notwithstanding her lack of eloquence, he understands her train of thought.

“Hey,” he pulls his hand from between her legs and reaches it up, and she takes it gratefully. “You’ll _never_ lose me.” He squeezes down on her palm tightly, and his brown eyes don’t shy away from hers as they beg for her trust. “I promise.” He hovers motionless above her, waiting for her to acknowledge his vow.

She closes her eyes with a nod. She does trust him.

He kisses down her stomach and over her hipbones so slowly. Too slowly. She returns both her hands to their refuge in his hair and tries to brace herself for what he’s about to do… it’s been so long since anyone has… since… _fuck_ he’s almost there now… he pulls one of her knees up close to her body and his nose burrows into her curls.

“Beautiful…”

Three syllables, three warm wisps over her wet heat, and then he’s there.

Soft lips, gentle teeth… the warm, rough length of his tongue. His name spills from her lips as her body trembles with the sudden onslaught of so many neglected nerve endings firing at once. Her hands fist in his hair and she tries to cling onto those threads of reality as the focused devotion of his mouth tilts the earth on its axis. But the tips of her toes tingle, her brain goes light and fuzzy, warm electricity spreads from her center throughout her body until she has no choice but to surrender to the pleasure drugs flooding her system. All she can do is dig her heels into his back and beg him not to stop.

\---

In the twilight state of satisfied, drowsy consciousness induced by orgasm and hyperventilation, she hardly registers his hands and mouth wandering over her body. Patiently waiting.

When she finally comes to, he’s holding her left hand in the air. Rubbing his thumb over her empty ring finger. She opens her eyes to find him lying on his side next to her, staring pensively at the inked letters.

Is he imagining what it’d look like if it said ‘Tennant’ instead? She fights back a smile. He’s cheesy like that.

Or maybe he’s wishing it wasn’t there at all. Like she wishes it wasn’t. That’s more likely.

“Wondering if I’d change it for you?” she teases.

He looks down at her, surprised to see she’s finally alert.

“Maybe.”

He sets her hand down gently on her stomach, and she strums her fingers against her skin.

“Ten years too late.”

Anger flashes in his eyes, and he rolls on top of her. Covers her mouth with his, squeezes her bum, rolls her nipple under his thumb. Marks his territory. Because just for now, he isn’t too late. She’s his.

\---

His pace is faster than she remembers, his thrusts shallower, and it only takes a minute until his face distorts like he’s about to go off. But she has to remember it’s been ages for them. Probably ages since he’s shagged anyone. God knows how hard it is to get in a shag when there’s an infant around. But desperate as he is to come, he doesn’t succumb to selfishness. He stays attentive. Readjusts his position when she goes too quiet. Guides his fingers to her clit when she lifts her hips up, searching. Pushes harder and deeper when she begs for more.

 “If you did ever decide to change it I’d…” he huffs, fighting for air. “Get one that says ‘Piper’.”

As bad timing as it is, and much as she tries to fight it, stray tears leak from her eyes. She knows the tattoo is stupid and naïve. She knows he didn’t even mean what he said, that he’s just a male caught up in a moment of intense passion, inebriated by hormones. But she still wants him to. To do the unspeakable and tear his home apart so he can wear her name on his finger.

It’s too late by the time he realizes what he’s done.

He doesn’t try to soothe her sorrow with words. He knows there’s nothing he can say to patch the stitch he’s torn open. But he slows to a stop and catches the droplets with his lips. Claims her mouth in a tender, salty kiss that sends the dark clouds of loneliness scattering. That turns back the clock to a time before it all fell apart and she thought his kisses would last forever. His sense of urgency tempered by the sentimental moment, he lasts several more minutes once he gets going again, keeping as close to her as he can, her arms and legs tight around him, his mouth finding someplace on her neck or forehead to rest with every lull in his thrusts.

He still comes too soon, just moments before she’s ready he grunts out her name with an apology as he buries his face in her pillow. She rubs her hands up and down his back, lets him breathe through it, before she wriggles underneath him, keen for just a few more seconds of his skilled attention.

“Please,” she whispers.

His thumb finds her clit obediently, and he brings her to her second climax before he has fully softened inside of her.

\---

 “I can’t stay the night,” she whispers. Shatters their moment of peaceful silence with a bludgeon of reality. But she doesn’t move from inside the cocoon of his arms.

He tickles her cheek with his beard.

“Why not?”

“Someone might have seen me come in here, and I don’t leave ‘til morning…”

He exhales dramatically.

“Yeah. Suppose not, eh.” He’s silent for a moment. “Better than no time at all, though. I almost had to cancel.”

She’s silent, waiting for his explanation.

“Georgia asked to bring the kids down tonight. Had to tell her shooting ran late.”

“Dave, you didn’t…” She breaks free of his arms and turns around to face him.

“It’s not a big thing,” he shrugs, one palm up in the air. “I’m seeing them tomorrow.”

“No, you can’t… I thought we agreed you can’t cancel plans with them. Not for me. It’s not…”

“Stop.” He grips her shoulder, shaking his head. “Don’t do this to yourself. Please. We didn’t have plans. _You and I_ did.” He gestures between them. “I _wanted_ to see you tonight. You’ve had a rough couple of months. Thought you could use a friend.”

“I don’t think friends do this,” she scoffs, rubbing a hand down her face.

“Maybe not,” he concedes. “But we do.”

She chuckles humorlessly, hanging her head as the shame sets in.

“I care about you, Billie. Trust me, I’m always there when they need me. They know that. But I want to be there when you need me, too.” He pokes her gently in the chest with his index finger. “And I think you did tonight.”

She nods, and falls back into his embrace without further argument. He’s her best mate. Without her husband, he’s the only one left she can turn to. If she can’t rely on him, who else is left that she can?

“Do you have to go now?” he asks, tightening his hold on her belly to sway her answer.

She cranes her neck to see the alarm clock on the nightstand.

“No, I can stay a little bit.”

“Good.” He kisses her neck. “Then can you do something for me?”

“What?” She doesn’t dare accept right away.

He lets go of her and rolls off the bed, and she sits up and crosses her legs as pads across the room completely starkers to snatch something laminated off the desk.

“Now, _I’ll_ feel guilty if you don’t do this.” He stands at the foot of the bed, concealing his manly bits with the shiny rectangle of folded paper. Whatever it is, it’s empty on the back save for a swirly black border.

“What is it!?” she half-shouts, anxious already.

He leaps onto the bed and pushes the ivory pamphlet into her hands, a goofy smile on his face. She flips it over hastily, expecting the worst.

It’s a room service menu.


End file.
